


What Does the Fox Say?

by DoreyG



Category: Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Crushes, Episode Tag, Episode Tag: If You're So Smart Why Aren't You Rich?, Episode names with commas in them are a pain, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-22
Packaged: 2018-03-08 15:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3213782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Try not to worry about it, because you know what worry does-“</p>
<p>“It clouds the mind,” he gets out through gritted teeth, and tries - <i>ever</i> so hard – to unclench his fingers from where they’re knotted in the fabric of the chair, “and I don’t need that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Does the Fox Say?

“You’ll get him next time,” Phix’s voice is calm, steadying as she hops onto his lap and fixes him with an incredibly level look – dark eyes sparkling, muzzle _almost_ twitching in a smile even as his _stupid_ mooks and their hulkingly inelegant daemons cower into the background, “You _will_. Try not to worry about it, because you know what worry does-“

“It clouds the mind,” he gets out through gritted teeth, and tries - _ever_ so hard – to unclench his fingers from where they’re knotted in the fabric of the chair, “and I don’t need that, I don’t-“

It’s not working. The urge to break the chair, to break the _world_ , is somehow even harder than his willpower – an immovable object standing firm and obnoxious in the face of his entirely unstoppable force.

“Eddie,” Phix only gives his melodrama an unimpressed huff, digs her claws neatly into his thigh until his fingers just _have_ to unclench against their own volition, “ _Eddie_. Calm. Down. We’re closer now than we were two years ago, alright? Closer now than we were even a few months ago. That, if I’m not entirely wrong, is _progress_.”

He sniffs in a jerky breath through his nose, stiffly nods his head.

“Most definite progress, okay?”

He nods again, even stiffer.

“So that’s _good_ -“

“If you ask me _one_ more question that you think that you already know the answer to,” he interrupts, stiffer than he’s been since Mockridge _dared_ to sneer in his face the first time, “I will not be responsible for my actions, Phix.”

There’s a long pause.

…His daemon has fallen silent. Is staring at him with dark eyes, darkly _disapproving_ eyes.

“My apologies,” he offers, under the weight of that; Ducking his head in shame and _trying_ to get enough air in through his nose so that the world starts looking halfway logical again, “there was no need to be impolite.”

“No, there was not,” Phix offers mildly, but sighs and _deigns_ to coil closer to him – to tuck her red head right under his chin and let her warm fur comfortingly tickle his skin, “you’re not annoyed by the loss of Mockridge.”

He hesitates for a long moment, considering the practicalities of a lie to his very soul; but eventually sighs and shrugs – gives in to the inevitable with the same fondly resigned feeling that he’s had ever since Phix finally decided to settle, “not entirely.”

“Not entirely annoyed?” He can’t keep a secret from her, has rarely felt the need to. Her shrewd eyes and sharp teeth have a way of dragging things out of him that not even the Batman – with his shadowed face and bulging muscles and _mind_ \- could replicate, “or not entirely annoyed over Mockridge?”

“Both,” he offers, half to distract himself from thoughts of the Bat – and then, at the slow annoyance growing obviously in her eyes: “I understood, from your tone, that both was an option. So that’s the one that I’m choosing.”

“Hrm,” Phix says, fascinated, and slowly tilts her head up to watch him – to think to herself “…You’re not entirely obsessed by Mockridge anymore.”

“No.”

“You are, in fact, more fixated on another figure,” she continues slowly – and he has the horrible, sinking feeling that his thoughts of the Batman are about to become far harder to bury under a shroud of resolute denial, “a certain tall, dark and presumably handsome figure, mayhaps…?”

“I can’t _presume_ anything-“

He halts himself. Hesitates for another moment, keen under Phix’s flashingly amused eyes, as he tries to consider all the options – the continuations, the denials, the subject changes that could be deployed to such great affect and allow him to get on with what his life has somehow become-

But he’s already been over this, and he _tries_ to avoid repetition. He settles for a slow nod instead, a considered movement of his head that nobody outside of the two of them should be able to read anything into.

“My my,” Phix, of course, doesn’t disappoint – uncoils herself fully, until she can peer up into his eyes with amused tolerance… And _chuckles_ , ever so softly, “couldn’t you have chosen a nice sensible person who _wasn’t_ an abomination for your first crush?”

He’s so surprised, so humiliated and _burned_ by that observation, that he acts on instinct for the first time in years – yelps and pushes Phix off his lap with a possibly undue amount of force. She goes laughing, grinning, wagging her tail all the way down in blatant disrespect of his _abject misery_ at this turn of events.

They glare at each other for a long few moments.

…He takes a slow breath in, through his nose, and reminds himself that life would probably be a lot _worse_ without a smart-arsed fox daemon ready to pounce on his every slip, “he’s not an abomination.”

“Ah, so little Eddie gets _touchy_ about his crushes,” Phix laughs again, coils her tail around her paws in a display of insolence that makes him want to bang his head against something, “he has no daemon.”

“He almost certainly _does_ ,” he mutters sulkily, deciding to take Phix’s progression to giggles from guffaws as a most decided victory in the barren land that his life has become, “it’s probably just a small one, one that can hide behind his precious muscles. Or, failing that…”

“One that was separated from him somehow,” Phix provides for him, her giggles thankfully lowering in pitch until the only sign of her amusement is the merry shake of her shoulders, “which makes him, and _it_ , just as much of a freakish abomination as if he didn’t have one in the first place.”

He glares for a second.

…He lowers his head, breathes slowly in through his nose and decides to leave this argument for another day. Another year, if at all possible, “does this change anything?”

“No,” Phix allows, and leaves her prejudice by the wayside – glances up at him with narrow eyes and an amused twist to her face, even if her shoulders have finally stopped shaking, “does _this_ change anything, Eddie?”

He considers for a moment. Because he does, at least, understand the need for firmness in these matters. He still has that, if nothing else.

“…No. Nothing big, at the very least.”

“We’re still after Mockridge?”

“We’re still after Mockridge,” he confirms, straightening his shoulders and reminding himself of, well, _everything_ \- Rome wasn’t built in a day, the hunter should never get distracted by the prey (no matter _how_ dark and tempting his little wings are), “he needs to pay, for all that he’s done. And if-“

“ _When_.”

“- _When_ we get him,” he corrects smoothly, fixes his gaze upon Phix at his feet again – his guiding star, his compass to ward against the sharp and jagged edges of the world, “we’ll decide whether to start again, or to further explore down this path of villainy that we’ve found ourselves forced onto.”

“And if the Batman, and his _absent_ daemon, meddles?”

He takes in a deep breath. Watches Phix and her smart, sharp eyes. Remembers the humiliation of the maze – the byzantine traps ruined, the careful riddles unravelled, the minotaur stopped dead in its perfectly crafted tracks. _Imagines_ \- The Bat, the unknown quantity, the dark knight dancing through his plans like they were so much nothing in the face of his great intellect.

_Interesting_.

“Then maybe,” he offers, flushed hot from the dreaming with Phix chuckling at his feet, “we’ll meddle with him too.”


End file.
